Radioactive Love
by AlaskasFrostyAngel
Summary: I always thought that life in the Vault was easy. Only the occasional Radroach infestation and a few run-ins with Butch were all that ever plagued my simple existence. That was until a few weeks after my nineteenth birthday... Fem!LWXButch DeLoria Rated T for Strong Language. (Formerly known as A Fallout Romance)
1. The Great Escape

_Well hello there my lovely watchers! It's been a while since I've actually written something so I thought I would start a story. I've recently gotten into Fallout 3 and I wanted to write a story. I don't have much of a plot right now, but it will come to me eventually. Anywho this a romantic fic between the Fem!Lone Wanderer and Butch DeLoria. There will be action too I promise! _

**I don't own Fallout 3 or any of the characters in the game, they belong to Bethesda. ~Thanks AFA**

I always thought that life in the Vault was easy. Only the occasional Radroach infestation and a few run-ins with Butch were all that ever plagued my simple existence. That was until a few weeks after my nineteenth birthday. ..

I woke up to the sound of blaring alarms and my friend Amata shaking me vigorously. I sat up quickly and rubbed my eyes trying to make sense of her babbling. "Amata, hold on hold on, slow down." I said holding my hands up in a passive gesture to get her explain why she was so frantic.

"It's your dad! He escaped the Vault and now my dad is looking for you!" she looked terrified, like genuinely afraid for my safety. I raised my eyebrows and then got out of bed. She fished around in her bag and produced a handgun. "I managed to take this from my father's office before I left. You need to get the password to open the Overseer's exit. The room with the computer may be locked so take these bobby pins too." She shoved the gun into my hands and then pulled out a bundle of bobby pins. "Just pick the lock that's how I always get in. Find your dad!"

I ran a hand through my red hair. "Thank you Amata" I said as I put the gun at my hip and put the pins in my own pocket. I was then pulled into a hug.

"Just be careful Max" she said and then ran off. I watched her for a moment before looking over my room.

"I should probably get my things from my desk." I said to myself and walked over to it. I picked up my bb gun, its pellets, and my baseball bat. If I was going to have to fight my way out of here, I might as well do it swinging. I checked the medical cabinet and found ten stimpacks and some Med-X. I shrugged and started out. Immediately I was attacked by Officer Kendall.

I backed up quickly reaching for the handgun. "Shit, shit, shit." I cursed out almost dropping it before leveling it and firing at his head once. He dropped dead and I stepped forward hesitantly and poked him with my toe. He was definitely dead.

"Well he isn't going to need his clothes anytime soon." I said kneeling down and stripping him of his clothes and helmet. They would offer more protection than what I was wearing. I changed quickly and stepped into the hallway. Butch came running up to me looked very afraid.

"M-max! I need your help! My ma' shes bein' attacked by Radroaches." He pulled on his dark hair. "You have to help her!"

"Why can't you save her yourself?" I asked tapping my foot impatiently on the ground. I didn't have time for his bullshit, but he was scared, and being the Good Samaritan that I was, I felt obliged to help.

"It's dark and the Radroaches are there…" he mumbled. I let a sigh out and pulled my bat out.

"You mean to tell me that you're afraid of Radroaches." I raised my eyebrows but started towards the apartment anyway.

Butch muttered something under his breath and let me into the apartment before rushing inside to unlock the other door. I could hear his mother screaming on the other side so I came in swinging. The first Radroach splattered against the wall leaving its guts as a grisly paint job. The next one came flying at my face so I ducked and rammed the end of the bat into its skull. The last one took notice and stalked towards me. I pulled out the pistol and used shot it a few times.

I put the pistol away and helped Ms. DeLoria to her feet, and smiled. "Are you alright Ma'am?" I asked deciding to ignore the stench of vodka on her breath.

She looked herself over only finding a few Radroach bites. "I'm fine now." she said brushing herself off. Butch came in a large smile lighting his face.

"We did it, my mom's gunna be okay! You're the best friend I've ever had!" he said before pulling off his coat. "I know it's not much, but take my Tunnel Snakes jacket." I blinked as it was put in my hands.

"Are you sure Butch?" I asked as I folded it over my arm. He nodded with a great deal of enthusiasm.

"Absolutely, it's the least I can do." He said. I kicked the ground with my toe a bit and looked down at my toes.

"Thank you Butch, I have to leave the Vault, but if I can I will come back and find a way to thank you properly." I said looking back up at him directly in the eyes.

"Where are you goin'?" He asked now confused.

"To find my father, he's left the Vault, and now the Overseer is after me, I already had to kill Officer Kendall." I didn't feel good about it but I had to be done. I moved past him and towards the door.

"I'm goin' with you." Butch said making me stop in my tracks. I turned and gave him a pointed look.

"Butch I can't take you with me, it's going to be dangerous." I put my hands on my hips.

"I don't care." He said as he fished in a foot locker and pulled out another jacket identical to the one I had over my arm. "I can't have you upstaging me now can I?"

I rolled my eyes.' Typical Butch' I thought. "I can't guarantee what is out there Butch; I don't want your death on my conscious."

Butch scoffed and turned to me. "I can take care of myself and you are too much of a goodie two shoes." He said. He grabbed a bag and glanced over to his mother. She was already into another bottle of vodka. He sighed and walked towards me.

"Aren't you going to say goodbye?" I asked as I started to walk out of the apartment. I ignored his comment about me being a goodie two shoes. Though it was true I didn't want to hear it.

"She won't notice I'm gone, I'm barely here as it," he muttered, falling into step beside me. I frowned, trying to imagine what that would be like. "Don't worry about it and let's go."

After about thirty minutes of fighting our way through the vault, picking the lock on the Overseer's office door after he refused to give us the key and then finally opening the hatch to get to the exit I turned to Butch. "Are you sure you want to leave?" I asked him.

"Yes, let's go!" he grouched a little Amata came running up and eyed Butch.

"What is he doing here?" she asked obviously a little irate. She didn't like Butch, and Butch harassed her as much as he harassed me.

"Well hello to you too Amata" he sneered as she came to a stop beside me.

"He insisted on coming with me after I saved his mom, he wouldn't let me say no." I said as I moved over to the panel and searched for a button that told me that I opened the sealed door. "He said something about not wanting me to upstage him." I pressed a button and looked up when the alarm blared louder. Someone behind the door yelled something about how the door was opening. I grabbed Butches wrist and pulled him towards the entrance. "Amata, try to convince your father that this isn't a bad thing!" I yelled over the alarm as we ran. I didn't hear her response as I opened the door and stepped into a bright new world.


	2. A Not So Bright New World

_Hey, hey, everyone! It's time for another chapter! First off I would like to thank my first reviewer adolph. for being… well my first reviewer! Any review makes me feel special! Anywho, I'm thinking that I need to set a pace so that I'm not putting a chapter up every other day. It's not that I don't want to write a chapter every day, but I have to play through the game to get content for the fic. Sooo let's say weekly updates? That way I can:_

_Do my school work_

_Play the game_

_Roleplay on Dollwizard (Don't judge I have improved my writing skills there)_

_And last, but not least, write a good fanfic. I have others I'm planning on updating, but I'll focus on this one for now._

_Okay so now that we're done with that on to the disclaimer and then to the chapter!_

**I do not, in any way shape or form, own Fallout 3 or any of the characters, all rights go to Bethesda. Thanks ~ AFA **

I shielded my eyes as the wooden door shut creakily behind us. Something bright in the air above us was making it almost impossible to see. I squinted around trying to make out shapes but not having any luck. Butch didn't seem to be fairing any better than I was.

"Gah! What the hell is that!" he shouted covering his eyes. After a few more moments I was able to see straight enough to help him. I pull out a pair of tinted reading glasses I had found in our escape from the Vault.

"Here" I said pulling his hands from his eyes and slipping the glasses on his face. He blinked a few times at me and raised his eyebrow. "Better?" I asked as I stepped away and watched him as he nodded.

"Yeah, thanks." He said looking around at the barren scenery around us. "Damn…" he muttered. I turned and looked out over the land.

Damn was right. It was completely devoid of any life. It was nothing like what the books in school had described it as. Of course I was expecting it to be somewhat barren, but after 200 years something had to grow back. I started to step out on to the dirt when there was a crunch under my foot. I looked down and saw a couple of picketing signs and a skeleton or two. "Huh…" I said reading the signs. 'Fuck you' said one 'Let us in Assholes' read another. Many of them went on like that. I shivered as I stood back up.

"We should get moving, I don't know what kind of things are out here." I watched him snort and roll his eyes.

"You worry too much about me, I can take care of myself. "He grinned cockily. It was my turn to roll my eyes.

"Says the man who came running to me to save his mother from Radroaches, just stick close to me we may find a town nearby." I checked my Pipboy's map. "Come on the road is over here." I then started out to the right and jogged down the cracked pavement.

"It's so hot." Butch whined for about the thousandth time, about thirty minutes later. It was starting to get on my nerves. I clenched my hands as we came up to the ruins of a small town and shook my head.

"Oh my God will you shut the hell up!" I growled refraining from bashing him over the head with my bat when he repeated the same phrase over again. I heard him snicker and turned around to face him. I saw a brief flash of his infamous smirk but it vanished when I gave him a severe glare. "If you don't think you can cut it out here, go back to the cushiony life in the Vault."

He held his hands up his hands in a submissive gesture. "I'm just makin' an observation that's all, Nosebleed." He was probably trying to get me to lighten up a bit, but right now nothing was going to get me that way.

"First, don't call me Nosebleed, and second that's a pretty sucky observation, I know that it's hot so quit pointing it out." I told him taking a few deep breaths to calm myself. I heard him snicker again as I turned away.

"So redheads really do have a nasty temper." He chuckled. I sighed again and started walking down the road towards a sign that read 'Springvale'.

"You already knew that I had a temper DeLoria, I broke almost broke your jaw the day of the G.O.A.T, for teasing Amata." I said as I started to check containers for things. If we were going to survive out here we were going to have to scrounge. I started to dig through a large blue freestanding object that had an envelope on the side of it. 'Must be a mailbox' I thought. There was some ammo that didn't fit the guns we had and what looked like and inhaler with the word 'JET' scribbled on the side in jagged lettering. I raised my eyebrow and stuffed the items in my pocket.

"Yeah I know" I could almost see him rubbing his jaw as he remembered the day. "Sorry about that."

I snorted. "No you aren't" I was digging through a safe I had found and picked open when I heard something to my right. It was a soft puttering noise I looked around the burnt out corner and saw a small bot floating nonchalantly in the air. It wasn't giving any indications that it would going to attack us so I relaxed and went back to going through the safe.

"When are you going to quit doing that?" he asked leaning against one of the remaining walls.

"Quit doing what?" I asked looking up at him momentarily pausing my search.

"Being a bitch to me, we're in this together now." He pointed out but I already had an answer for that.

"Well first off, you've never been nice to me in the past, and second, I gave you an option to stay behind in the Vault, and you chose to follow me out here. So don't give me any shit about being out here together." I straightened and looked around spotting another sign that pointed us in the direction of Megaton, the closest town on the map. "This way." I said gruffly pointing at the sign before stalking out into the road.

Not long after setting out from the ruins of the town (which we found out was called Springvale at one point in time) we spotted a giant metal structure in the distance. "What is that?" Butch wondered out loud as we came up to it.

A robot nearby came to life and started to speak. "WELCOME-TO-MEGATON-THE-BOMB-IS-PERFECTLY-SAFE." It droned out making me stop in my tracks. There was a bomb here? I was hesitant for a moment looking around at the Wastelands. Something caught my attention nearby, a man dressed in rag, so I walked over to him.

"Please, help," he rasped his lips were parched and he looked extremely dehydrated. "I haven't had clean water in days." He held his hands out in a begging gesture and he looked desperate. I frowned and dug through my bag and found one of the purified water bottles we had collected from the Vault.

"Will this help?" I asked ignoring Butch's protests behind me about giving the beggar the water.

"Yes it will!" the man's grimy face light up brightly. "Thank you, kind stranger!"

I smiled myself and straightened turning back to Butch who by now seemed to be annoyed somewhat. "What the hell was that!" he growled as we walked away from the man and waited for the metal doors slide apart to let us in.

"He needed help that's what that was. We have plenty of clean water." I replied as I walked towards the town. I was stopped when he grabbed my arm.

"You can't just give away things like that randomly!" he glared at me to which I wholeheartedly returned. "We need the water if we're going to find your father."

My glared sharpened on him and a pulled my arm out of his hand. "It was one damn bottle of water, get off my case." I then stormed towards the gates of Megaton leaving him standing in the dry heat.


	3. Caps and Cherry Bombs

_Hello again my lovely readers, It's me again Alaska's Frosty Angel! I know it's been a few weeks since I last updated, I've been busy with school, and getting things packed up for a move. I beat the game a while ago and I've been playing around with the DLC's. Anyway I'm going to quite babbling and get on with the chapter. _

_Oh P.S. I edited the second chapter so it has more content and a few grammatical errors on the first chapters. They also have names now!_

_Also I mixed some of the games text with my own so it didn't sound like a copy and paste story. _

**I, in no way shape or form, own the Fallout Series or anything associated with it. That all goes Bethesda, Thanks! ~AFA**

I sighed softly as I entered Megaton, still fuming about the little spat Butch and I had outside. He had played the dad card, which was a low blow. I could hear him behind me shuffling his boots in the dust. A tall dark skinned man approached us wearing a strange hat and a long coat.

"Well I'll be damned. Name's Lucas Simms, town sheriff. And Mayor too, when the need arises; you two got a weird look about you. The kind that means trouble, I'll give everyone a fair shake. But if you do anything remotely stupid, you're dead." He said pointing a finger in our direction as my companion came to a stop beside me.

"Nice hat Calamity Jane." Butch said earning a sharp elbow to the ribs from me and an even sharper glare for the man. I gave the sheriff a sheepish smile.

"Ignore him; he doesn't know the meaning of the word polite sometimes. My name is Maxine Winters, but I prefer Max, and this is Butch DeLoria. This is a nice town you have here Sheriff, it's also nice to meet you." I held my hand out for a shake and offered a friendly smile. The sharp glare left Simms's face and he took my offered hand.

"Friendly _and_ well-mannered? I think we're gonna get along just fine, just as long as you treat the folks here nice, you can stay as long as you like." He said nodding a little.

"Right message received." I returned the nod.

"What about him?" Simms pointed to Butch who was currently scanning the walls of the city still rubbing the rib that I elbowed.

"DeLoria?" His eyes snapped to mine and I jerked my head in Simms direction. "Did you catch that?"

"Yeah yeah, don't mess with the townsfolk." He grumbled and went back to looking around.

"Alright now that we all understand each other, is there anything I can help you with?"

I perked up at the offer and nodded vigorously. "I'm looking for my father. He's a middle aged guy, maybe you've seen him?" I was hopeful this man had some sort of information.

"Nope sorry. I got enough fires to put out in this place that I don't have time to keep tabs on every visitor. Try asking around town."

Butch peered around Simms seeing the bomb lodged in the middle of town. "Let's talk about that instead then." He said pointing to the potentially dangerous explosive.

"What about it?" the sheriff raised his dark eyebrows after taking a glance at it and then looking back to the two former Vault dwellers.

"Why is it there?" I asked going through all of the explosive knowledge I had. Back in the Vault I had found books in the classroom with information on many things including the atomic bombs that had been dropped during the war.

"Well the town was built around it and it's just sorta been there. Hell the folks at the church worship the damn thing. "He took his hat off his head and rubbed the back of it before replacing the hat on its perch.

"Aren't you worried about it going off?" I asked frowning. With the right components someone could blow this town to bits if they wanted to.

"Not really, unless someone messes with it, then there would be some cause for concern" Simms said looking back at the bomb. Apparently my words got him thinking. "I suppose if it could be disarmed then the town would be a little safer."

"I could disarm it if you'd like." I offered before I could stop myself. "I have a little bit of explosives training that could become helpful. "

"Well if you could do that I can give you a reward, say 100 caps?" I tipped my head to the side before pulling a face.

"Uh we are very new out here, so if you could explain what caps are that would be great." Again a sheepish smile came across my face.

"Caps are currency now. If you ever find any Nuka-Cola bottles be sure to save the caps." The dark skinned man pulled a few from a pouch on his hip and showed them. "See?"

I smiled "Thanks!" before I started to move around the man.

"Oh, if you really want information on your father I suggest you two go to Moriarty's Saloon and talk with him. He always has something on the people who come through here. "He was then called away by a settler. I looked over at Butch and nodded down towards the bomb. I wanted a look at it before I tampered with it.

"I didn't know you have explosives training." Butch commented lightly as we came up to the radioactive object. Our Pipboys started to click nosily as we slipped into the small crater.

"Yeah, who do you think set off those Cherry bombs in the Overseers office a few years ago? That's one of the reasons why he hates me so much." I said as he popped the little panel open on the bomb ignoring the sickly feeling that was starting to set in. There were a bunch of wires on the inside that crisscrossed over each other.

"_You_ were the one who set those off?" He said his eyebrows rising and a serious look of surprise passing over his face.

"Yeah, he grounded Amata for something she didn't do so I took retaliation and tossed them in there to mess up his organizational pattern in his office." I said with mischievous grin. "Botch had some books about explosives and a couple of other things in his classroom, so I picked 'em up and started learning." I closed the hatch and moved away from the bomb. "I'll come by and disarm this later lets go to Moriarty's and see what he has to say."

_If anyone is interested, I can make a character template for Max. I actually play her in the game so it won't be hard to get the stats if needed. Anywho, I'm tired so I'm going to bed, and I'll see ya'll in a week or so. Lots of Love ~ AFA_


End file.
